Despite the outcome of this year’s election, the Colorado Republican Committee (CRC) has made some significant strides towards its ground game. The CRC coordinated Victory Program’s ground game was recognized by the Republican National Committee as one of the top programs in the country.

This year’s CRC Victory program made over 2.4 million voter contacts through June 1, 2008 to November 4, 2008. This is an increase of over 95 percentage points from the State Party’s Victory program of 2004. That means we made over 1.1 million more contacts this cycle compared to the 2004 election cycle.

Colorado had one of the top performing ground games in the country this election cycle. Nationally the CRC ranked 3rd in total number of phone calls and doors hit over the election cycle. We ranked 1st in the total amount of doors hit and 5th in the amount of total phone calls made during the election year.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Doors Knocked On
Door contacts Made in 2008: 602,426
(note: this does not include several hundred thousand doors that were hit with a straight lit drop)
Door contacts Made in 2004: 439,285

Note: 163,141 more doors were hit in 2008

Phone Calls Made
Phone calls Made in 2008: 1,846,739
Phone calls Made in 2004: 814,205

Note: 1,032,534 more phone calls were made in 2008

Total Voter Contacts Made (Doors and Phones)
Total Contacts Made in 2008: 2,449,165
Total Contacts Made in 2004: 1,253,490

Note: 1,195,675 more voter contacts were made in 2008

2008 NATIONAL NUMBERS BY THE TOP STATES:

Phone Calls Made
State – Total Electoral Votes (EV) Total Phone Contacts

Florida – 27 EV: 3,615,084 Ohio – 20 EV: 3,467,352 Pennsylvania – 21 EV: 2,395,386 Virginia – 13 EV: 1,924,365

Colorado – 9 EV: 1,846,739

Total Voter Contacts Made (Doors and Phones)
State – Total Electoral Votes (EV) Total Contacts (Doors and Phones)

Florida – 27 EV: 3,827,490 Ohio – 20 EV: 3,712,377 Pennsylvania – 21 EV: 2,525,011

Colorado – 9 EV: 2,449,165

Not only did we see a significant increase over in this year’s ground game, but the CRC increased its support of candidates as well, spending over $90,000 on legislative races this election year. This is an increase of over $25,000 from the 2004 cycle, and an increase of $12,000 from the 2006 cycle. These gains can be attributed in large measure to the creation of the CRC’s Small Donor Committee and State Party’s Political Action Committee. These two accounts helped the CRC raise additional resources to help legislative candidates in 2008.

BY THE NUMBERS: CRC Contributions made towards Legislative Candidates

Legislative Contributions Made in 2008: $91,434
Legislative Contributions Made in 2006: $79,362
Legislative Contributions Made in 2004: $66,698

On top of the $91,000 directly spent on legislative candidates another $2.2 million was spent on generic Republican turn out mail and paid phone calls. This money was spent on absentee chase mail, early vote mail and GOTV (get out the vote) mail. Each of these generic Republican mail pieces was also followed up by paid phone calls. The CRC also purchased over 600,000 slate door hangers that was broken down by precincts. Each piece displayed our presidential nominee John McCain, US Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, Colorado State Senate candidate and Colorado House candidate. We also coordinated with various County Parties to allow for other down the ticket candidates to be added to each slate piece.

The growth in our ground game operation is due to the coordinated efforts of the CRC and County Parties. Without the help of County Party Chairmen throughout the State we would not have been able to make 2.4 million voter contacts. Through our weekly conference calls and daily communication we made significant strides to expand our operations. We still have a lot more to do as we approach the 2010 election cycle. However, thanks to the excellent work of our field staff and County Chairmen the CRC is moving in the right direction.

Regards,

Michael J. Britt

Executive Director Colorado Republican Committee